The Sound and the Glory by Matt Pentz

Author:Matt Pentz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ECW Press
Published: 2019-03-04T16:00:00+00:00

On a typically dark and damp February night the following year, a group of Seattle soccer luminaries packed a wood-paneled British pub in the neighborhood of Ballard to near capacity.

The event, hosted by Washington State Legends of Soccer, was titled “Brian Schmetzer, This Is Your Life” and featured a panel of family members and former coaches, players and colleagues, each of whom took turns mixing sincere well wishes with gentle ribbing. The man of the hour was plainly mortified at being the center of such glowing attention — “awkward and embarrassing” were his first words to describe it. Though Schmetzer sat off to the side of the makeshift stage at the front of the room, perched uncomfortably atop a bar stool, he could feel the eyes of the entire room upon him.

He blushed red when the stories hit too close to home, like when grizzled Sounders defender Zach Scott recalled their minor-league days, when Schmetzer would throw him into games in the 89th minute to ensure he got the meager match-day bonus ($250) owed to him only if he saw the field. Schmetzer wiped away the occasional stray tear, too, such as ones shed when Jimmy Gabriel, one of his longtime mentors, described how proud he was of how far he’d come.

If the occasion was in honor of Schmetzer, it also underlined just how closely his own career path intertwined with the wider history of the sport in this city. Going all the way back to the days of his youth in the 1970s, Schmetzer played for or coached nearly every professional soccer team of significance in the greater Puget Sound.

Andy and Walt, Brian’s brothers, waxed poetic about their exploits with the Lake City Hawks, the youth club their father coached that won multiple state championships. Schmetzer suited up for the NASL Sounders, of course, but played just as pivotal a role after that league went bust in 1983. He played for FC Seattle under the tutelage of Gabriel, a team semi-pro in nature but that had an outsized impact in keeping the flame of the game alive in the city.

The FC Seattle roster reads like a who’s who of future coaches who would impact Washington State soccer for a generation. Everett native Chris Henderson would go on to a lengthy career with the U.S. national team before becoming the Sounders’ sporting director. Pete Fewing went on to become the head coach at Seattle University, leading that program to multiple lower-division national titles and the Division I Sweet 16 in 2015. Chance Fry played a formative role with the youth club Eastside FC, which produced Morris, as did Bernie James at Crossfire, which played a huge role in the development of Yedlin.

Schmetzer was their guy, Seattle’s guy. His fate, for good and for bad, was tied to the city’s coaching fraternity, which knew exactly where he came from, and what he’d been through, to ascend to his current station.

After FC Seattle, Schmetzer played indoors for the San Diego Sockers and

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